Pat Benatar and Neil Giraldo Coming to Providence!

The 1980s female rock icon Pat Benatar and her producer-guitarist-husband, Neil Giraldo, are ready to bring the inaugural concert season at Bold Point Park in East Providence, Rhode Island to a successful close on Friday, September 22nd with gates opening at 5:00 p.m. Set times are subject to change, check www.riwaterfrontevents.com for confirmed lineup updates. Advance ticket prices starting at $22.75 for General Admission and $49.75 for Reserved Seats can be purchased online at www.ticketmaster.com or www.riwaterfrontevents.com, by calling Ticketmaster at 800-745-3000 or by visiting Jordan’s Liquors at 199 Taunton Avenue in East Providence during regular store hours. On the day of the event, tickets will also be available at the RI Waterfront Events box office at Bold Point Park.

“We are ending our first concert season at Bold Point Park with a powerhouse show. A night of non-stop hits from Pat Benatar and Neil Giraldo on the waterfront is a perfect way to send off our summer concert series,” said Michele Maker Palmieri, Founder and President of Waterfront Productions, the parent company of Rhode Island Waterfront Events and Newport Waterfront Events. Palmieri added that the final festival of the season is the 25th Annual Oktoberfest which is slated for Saturday, October 7th.

Benatar, the leading female rock vocalist of the 1980s with multiple Platinum albums, four Grammy awards and three American Music Awards, has always been a trailblazer as songs like “Love is a Battlefield”, “Hit Me with Your Best Shot”, “Heartbreaker”, “Promises In The Dark” and “We Belong” contributed to the dawn of MTV and forged a path for other female rock stars around the world. Benatar’s life changed forever in 1979 when she was introduced to guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Neil Giraldo, who shared the singer’s passions and used his skills as an innovative arranger and producer to help form the renowned Benatar sound.

Giraldo and Benatar’s vision became clear on her 1979 platinum selling debut album, In The Heat Of The Night, which included Top 40 hits like “Heartbreaker” and the Giraldo-penned “We Live For Love”. The 1980 Crimes Of Passion album was a Grammy Award-winning, #2 smash reaching quadruple platinum and giving Benatar her first Top 10 hit – the gold-certified “Hit Me With Your Best Shot”. It also included, “You Better Run”, the second ever video to air on MTV. Benatar’s next album, 1981’s Precious Time, went double platinum and outdid its predecessor by hitting #1 with lead single, “Fire and Ice”, earning Benatar her second Grammy award.

Other platinum albums followed, including 1982’s Get Nervous which went Top Five and featured the Grammy-winning “Shadows Of The Night”. That same year Benatar and Giraldo got married. The 1983’s Live From Earth boasted the Grammy-winning, Top Five hit, “Love Is A Battlefield” and 1984’s Tropico charted the Grammy-nominated “We Belong”. In 1999, Benatar and Giraldo opened their private vaults and compiled an extensive three-CD collection, Synchronistic Wanderings: Recorded Anthology 1979-1999. Benatar released her long-awaited autobiography in 2010 entitled, Between a Heart and a Rock Place. Benatar and Giraldo remain a rock ‘n’ roll powerhouse today.

Waterfront Productions secured final approvals in February on a three–year lease of land at Bold Point Park in East Providence for a seasonal, open-air, waterfront entertainment venue with a capacity for 3,500 people for concerts and 5,000 for general admission festivals. The venue will feature annual concerts, music festivals and other events by national, international and local artists along with food and beverage options including full bars, lounge areas and local food trucks. Event-goers will enjoy beautiful views of upper Narragansett Bay, the Providence and Seekonk Rivers and the Providence skyline. Bold Point Park is located at 600 Waterfront Drive in East Providence, Rhode Island off Veteran’s Memorial Parkway and next to Tockwotton on the Waterfront. It is directly across the river from India Point Park in Providence. Please visit www.riwaterfrontevents.com for information on parking.

Waterfront Productions LLC, headquartered in Newport, Rhode Island, specializes in event management/production and venue operation and is the parent company of Newport Waterfront Events and Rhode Island Waterfront Events. Formerly the event management team at the Newport Yachting Center in downtown Newport, Waterfront Productions LLC started in 2015 after the Newport Yachting Center was sold to Peregrine Group in 2014. Waterfront Productions owns and manages the Great Chowder Cook-Off, now held at Fort Adams in Newport, Rhode Island; the Waterfront Reggae Festival held in 2015 and 2016 at India Point Park in Providence, Rhode Island and a summer/fall concert series that originated as the Sunset Music Series/Newport Concert Series and has since migrated to other venues in the Providence area the past two years. The Waterfront Productions team also owns and operates The Newport Skating Center, an outdoor skating rink in downtown Newport open annually December through February. Other events Waterfront Productions has co-produced over the past 12 years include the Volvo Ocean Race concerts at Fort Adams State Park in 2015, Newport Comedy Series, and the Newport International Boat Show. Waterfront Productions also offers event management consulting services.

For more information, please visit www.riwaterfrontevents.com, contact Michele Maker Palmieri, Founder and President of Waterfront Productions via email at mmaker@newportwaterfrontevents.com or call (888) 900-8640, Ext. 709. To receive future Rhode Island Waterfront Events and Newport Waterfront Events announcements, presale opportunities or exclusive packages, sign up at riwaterfrontevents.com and become a fan on Facebook at facebook.com/RIWaterfrontEvents, Instagram/RIWaterfrontEvents, Twitter/RIWEvents and Snapchat/boldpointpark.